The vignette “Hips,” symbolizes the innocence of the children, in the sense that they are still young talking about things that are far beyond their age. For example, Rachel describes hips as being good for propping babies on. This example that Rachel describes is something that a mother would do only further maintaining the fact that, Esperanza and her friends are talking about things that are far beyond their current age. Further building onto the symbolism of innocence in this vignette, Nenny believes that without hips, they would turn onto men. Whilst talking about these grown up subjects, the girls are dancing while jumping robe, furthering the fact that they in fact are too young to understand what they are actually talking about. Along with innocence, Cisneros also displays the literary device of characterization, when Esperanza becomes embarrassed by the way that her sister acts. Throughout much of the book Esperanza seems to dislike her sister, but in this vignette she seems to be defending her sister from her friend’s comments, this tells us that she in fact does love her sister and cares about her feelings. Through the use of symbolism and characterization, Cisneros displays areas of the novel, where Esperanza grows in areas that she lacked at the beginning.